


The Godtouched

by dosymedia



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Demisexual Steve Rogers, Detective Sam Wilson, Endgame James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Goddess Ororo Munroe, Inspired by Black Magick (Comic), Inspired by The Dresden Files, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, No Racist Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Out of Character Monica Rambeau, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Prostitution, Romani Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson-centric, Set in Upstate New York, Slow Burn, Witchcraft, inspired by True Detective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dosymedia/pseuds/dosymedia
Summary: In the winter of 1974, Sam Wilson, a disgraced state trooper, investigates a young woman’s murder in the town of Mansvale, but his investigation is impeded by the locals’ racially charged distrust. He partners with Steve Rogers, a county clerk who acts as Sam’s town guide, and together they uncover a sordid past that continues to harm the town’s most vulnerable. They face threats from witches, demons, and angels as they attempt to bring the victims of past and present justice.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	The Godtouched

**Author's Note:**

> This work is informed primarily by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America run, Rick Remender’s All-New Captain America: Hydra Ascendant, and Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier by Ales Kot. Like Coates' run, it is also in response to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer. 
> 
> Pertaining to the racebending and period-typical racism tag: Bucky Barnes is Jewish Romani in this story and the Maximoff twins are Romani. Without personal experience, no amount of research would be entirely satisfactory, so I apologize for the mistakes I made in depicting this culture. This apology extends to the time period altogether. The seventies here is of greater tonal significance than literal, so there are apocryphal oversights and/or outright changes as far as the language, attitudes, technology, and culture. 
> 
> While race is a prevalent issue within this story, no racist slurs were used. Though there may be questionable and outdated language, anything harsh and derogatory falls outside of this story’s tone. Hateful rhetoric is present when appropriate for the character, those opinions are not the author’s.
> 
> This story is influenced by so many things, including: True Detective, Devil May Cry 5, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, Black Magick by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father. If literary anime was a genre, that’s exactly what this would be. Big booties, big swords, big words, let’s go.

His dreams were always the same damn thing. A girl’s body sunk into mud. The boy that’d put her there. A knife or a gun. Bruises traveling the route of her thighs. Then a voice sweet as fluttering wings saying to, “get right and emasculate;” to snap boy wonder’s prick off the trunk.

He’d pretend it was the feathery bastard auditioning for Motel’s Dead Clock #2 that’d woke him in a sudden start instead. Birdsong of the blue jay, sitting on the sill. Fluffed up. Almost spectral through these curtains, and its belly a chalk outline against near-dawn. He’d come to think of it as singular. Blue jays were common upstate (so said the BWA spread he’d Xeroxed into faintest print), but this was a martial believer in the badge — the last truly invested. Or maybe it was a diasporic initiative to pester him. Nicer to think was it being Jay. _The_ Jay, come to wake him for the next girl. 

“Dead can give anotha five,” he mushed into his pillow. Jay twittered back.

He groused, though Jay was right. Sooner he got up, sooner he’d replace this ceiling’s constellation of ill-begotten stains with the stars out his own window.

Something scratched his bare chest. Probably the roaches coming for their morning kiss. Looking down, it was a hand covering his heart. Sam took that hand in his, sanded his thumb against its calluses. Followed the contours of strappy muscle up to tan, freckled shoulders. There, he brushed the fried tips of bleached hair. Dark stubble crept past the flowered edge of their faded paisley comforter. Where the curtains were thinnest, neon turned the man verdant. Thinking back, Sam saw eyes as impenetrable as the edge of a deep, dark forest, but soon he’d know their color. 

Next to no light outside, despite it being the AM. And it was cold. If not for the naked body curled into his, he might’ve been a corpse, frozen solid with that no-good, rattling heater a couple feet away. It was one-to-one for how cold it got and how much police a town could afford. Rich retirees who fancied their evenings at the Met called dibs on temperate sweet spots like Westchester. Mansvale was north of Albany and saw more fatalities from blizzards than people. It’d been a homicide faxed to state. Not Mansvale’s first, but one too many for the town’s already overloaded detective. So, here was the cavalry with the assist.

Sam hoped it went smooth. Most homicides lasted several dead-end weeks and then were shuffled into manila folders to be forgotten. But Sam meant to beat the coming Nor-easter before it shook all that snow off the tippy-top of the Adirondacks. Red thought herself a lap dog and he’d yet to disabuse her of the notion; he’d rather spend his Christmas with her and his sister than holed up in this motel.

Jay tapped on the window. “Going, going,” Sam muttered as he dug his knuckles into his eyes. Jay tapped again, so Sam flew a bird high. Rolled out of bed, got bathroom basics like a towel and toothbrush under his arm, and then scrubbed up. When he came out the shower, the verdant man still dreamed. But by his look, they’d gone sour; his brow creased, he tossed, and his blunt fingers dug into his pillow.

What was his name again? Something that rolled on the tongue, but the closest he got was “Peter”. He shook Peter firm until his first question was answered: his eyes were a brackish green. More haunting than mystery, and just the kind of sad that Sam fell hard for. Made him sorry that last night was the closest to exorcism they’d get.

“Peter?” The man gave some groggy protestations, then was alert: aware that he wasn’t where he’d expected himself to be. He pushed Sam off, then jerked back to the furthest corner of the bed. Sam put his hands up. "I’ve gotta go to work," he said, sounding as sorry as he was feeling about it. It took a second for the words to pass morning fog. The man hummed and nodded, absently scratching at the inside of his arm where some ink was obscured by shadow. He stopped, self-conscious. “Shower’s free,” Sam added to get things rolling. Some guys dumped the evidence of their nights out on their bare asses once a ray broke perfect dark, but sex with men ranked around a four on his list of shames. Most of the people he could disappoint were dead, so when he fell again for the sharp, angular jut of Peter’s stubbly jaw, when he watched his throat bob or followed the pale, jagged stretch marks on his jutting hip to their termination, his self-loathing was a low simmer that couldn’t convince him to quit.

Peter barely softened, and the tiny give was pulled back when Sam dared to smile in kind. He scooted from the bed, picked his clothing from wherever it’d been thrown, and then slammed the bathroom door.

The shower chunked out an uneasy stream. Sam searched the motel’s five channels for today’s forecast while he dressed in slacks and a button-down patterned with pale, blue dots that coalesced into a pleasant robin’s egg when afar. A man in polka dots could only be calm and friendly, or so he hoped. Damn unfortunate his dress code had to be stricter than the white detectives on the beat; a leather jacket and jeans made his authority questionable to most. Times like these, he missed the uniform. People recognized it and knew how to act around it, even if they didn’t respect it and certainly if they didn’t respect him. Not that it’d been the panacea to neighborhood racists. But most feigned tolerance and played it neutral 'til he was gone. And there was something about the khaki get-up he’d underestimated, having been black and blue in Harlem. People out here reserved a reverence for the trooper hat that just didn’t touch the City. 

All he had was a black windbreaker with “POLICE” on the back. Sam wore it with a thicker coat zipped up to hide the labels. He didn’t have a gauge on how Peter might react and couldn’t remember telling him what he did for a living. There were plenty of horror stories told during his patrol days of officers snitched on for their predilections, or of officers spotting someone’s rent to keep their privacy intact. Sam didn’t have that kind of money to give — no honest cop did — and he wasn’t looking to get blackmailed outta his paycheck either.

Speaking of, Sam pat down his pockets for his wallet and keys. Found neither on his person. So, began the search on hands and knees. The news traded places with a rerun. Odd thing. Looked old amidst in-color shows, but it was a novel concept: a strong cleft chin on twiggy legs strides into this seedy bar called Hellhole, his badge blinding as a beamer, and seconds behind him is his partner. Black guy, spotless. The blueprint rolled out to the rest of them. These two exchange wits, which has the bar chuckling, but surprise, surprise — ain’t funny when their quips lash outwards. The hulkings growl, and the black one tells his partner the plan ( — “plan” — they’re overturning a table and praying to the holy mother to keep them from getting swissed). That’s when _ba-da-ba-dum_ , kitten heels bring peace in wartime. Realism’s over with once the red dress tears, the gross pops of bone broken and splintered is the lone track as some _…thing_ claws out the dame’s chest, turning her all fatale, no femme. Just like the quarter comics he’d read growing up, or like those cheesy paperbacks that Sarah had loved, the ones off the supermarket rack.

The door wheezed long. Even at his back, Peter was magnetic; Sam felt him before his added weight buoyed Sam’s end of the bed. He snorted. “You want a cop show, _Above Suspicion_ ’s the best. _Chinatown_ ’s fine too — little slow.” The way certain consonants chucked their coastal binds betrayed the man as _Other,_ though Sam couldn’t quite place him. His guess: that he’d feel right in Brighton. 

“Isn’t that still showing? Heard it was depressing.”

“That’s why it’s good.” The headboard banged against the wall, Peter was leaning on it. “This shit’s cellophane; propaganda to make us kiss pig hooves.”

So, there was his opinion of cops. 

Sam shrugged. “Looks harmless.”

“What’re you on? They shoot up the place and get called heroes by the end of it.”

“You saw the thing bursting out that girl’s chest, right?” Sam folded his arms. “Besides, the point seems alright.”

The man groaned, his throat bared to Sam as he let his head drop to the headboard’s curve. “Why? Because it’s a black guy and a white guy — ?”

“Two unlike minds cooperating against evil…”

“They won’t be buddy-buddy once the wind blows hard, and the only thing that one will remember after is not to call him ‘negro’.” A deep scowl set on the man’s face, “They don’t change, they just find new words for you, point’s the same with every cop show.”

Sam’s eyes didn’t petition for permanent residence inside his skull, so his patience was solid. Good to test before the day’s start. And there was a piquing detail in the diatribe. “They.” Sam did his once-over while it wouldn’t catch any more of the man’s ire, but gleaned nothing. Peter looked white enough to get by, but maybe there was a difference in ethnic divides north of Albany. “So, where’re you and me?”

A slow lull and Sam was examined under heavy lids. No care for being seen chopping a man into morsels, Peter’s expression went toothy with licked lips. His hands moved with his eyes, downwards, and his tone too. “Think I’ve got jungle fever.” There was the one-two beat before a grin cracked his hunger. “Your fucking face right now!” 

Sam put that fucking horrified face into his hands as he stood, groaning. Guy thought he was a fucking riot, was busting his gut while Sam paced. If he ha’d himself to death right then, Sam would’ve savored his report. “You’re an ass,” he said, and when the guy laughed harder, “You really are.” 

“I was _joking_.” Sam made an uninterested noise. That smile of his was still too self-satisfied when he pried Sam’s hands from his face. “Sorry,” he said. His grip was strong and his touch like Brillo. But Peter was gentle when he wanted to be; every bit of him gave to the soft stroke of Peter’s thumb up the length of his wrist.

Gruff, he said (because the facsimile of resistance was _something_ to hide behind), “You don’t look it.” 

And he didn’t even try to. “Just kidding with you. Really.” Except the shit did drop for a real feeling. “I…had a really good time last night.” 

Sam stepped closer. Better than saying — well, anything. Sam read clearly. That touch of his that _sent_ Sam spread, to his jaw, his neck. It teased the hem of his shirt from their neat tuck. Sam stopped him. “Can’t. Got someplace to be.” 

Just a sigh as he backed off. In seconds, he missed him; Peter was heated and winter sought a new bone with every step taken towards the door. “Need a ride?” Remembering, he pat his pockets. He’d been looking for his wallet, his keys before that show’d come on.

“If you don’t mind. But it’s out the way,” and he heard the jingle-jangle of keys. Peter had his hand between the bed and its nightstand. He tossed them, which Sam caught easily. “Wait, there’s something else,” and the space subsumed his arm to the shoulder. “You one of those forget-your-head types?”

Sam’s “No,” had the man laughing again.

“Uh huh,” he pulled a wallet from the abyss. Sam expected another throw. None came when Peter stood. His gold star made a meal of grainy fluorescents, it shone. Bright, proud.

And Peter went red. "You’re a cop."

Keep it light, keep it cool — but Sam’s smile slanted funny while his stomach plummeted. “You’ll ride in the front seat, I swear.”

“You’re a _cop._ ” The way the guy looked him over, he thought he’d list Sam’s next obvious flaws: that he was a cop. A black cop. A gay black cop and a gay black cop _upstate._ If the judge was generous, he’d say to pick two. Sam couldn’t be them all and expect good to come of it. 

Sam raised his hands for holy mercy despite not stepping inside a church for at least a decade. “This was a good time, that’s all,” he said, “No one’s hurtin'.” 

But talk was done. Police were an amorphous body taking all sorts of meanings. One minute they were the crooks to avoid if you couldn’t pay their take, the next: the only ones to trust. Sam was a traitor, Sam was a liar, Sam was a hero, a soldier, and a thug. What of these was he to Peter? By the way he rushed for the door: Sam was the dame waiting to pop.

Fool of him to try and stop the guy. He didn’t know — instinct kicked in before reason.

They were the fast and the stalwart; Sam nearly ripped Peter’s hand from the socket, he was going so fast, but Peter whipped back and had a gift in eco-wrapping too: a fist with splotchy tats across the knuckles, slammed right into Sam’s jaw.

Just like one of those Rock 'Em Sock 'Ems, his head flew off and he fell onto his ass. The verdant light bled behind closed eyes. Past the throbbing in his boomeranged head was Jay laughing his tail feathers off in chirupy tweets. Well, Peter slipped his grip easy with that one, but the game changed. Why flee when he could kick Sam’s ass to next Sunday? Real hatred was pitted in his eyes now, like Sam had stuffed his puppy into a trash bin. Balled fists, wide stance, and Sam on the ground — looked like he’d wreck him easy, too. Looked. 

He hooked Peter’s ankle with his foot and got them on equal ground, with Peter clutching at air and then grabbing the end of the bed before landing hard on his side, a heap of thin, cum-stained sheets there to rub his nose into. 

The Odessa got obvious; Peter swore, loud and emphatic. No clue what the literal meaning was, but surely his mother turned from the mention; something, something, “ma-til,” was said through bared teeth. The look Peter gave him then surprised him. This wasn’t anger, it was murder.

“Man, listen,” he said, scrambling back, “'less you’ve gone and killed somebody I’m not too interested in the paperwork, so…” and he dangled the key’s kept looped around his finger. "You got somewhere to go?" Peter’s glare wouldn’t quit. Sam shook the keys, like he was convincing a bulldog of a better meal than the leg it was looking to gnaw on. 

Their silence was one of heavy breathing and it lasted so long that Sam’s hands came to dig into the fibers of the cheap carpet. Peter looked until murder subsided for an unasked question. "Not with you," he growled.

Better than him wanting Sam’s heart out his chest. So, progress. Though Peter wanted an excuse to rip into him. He could see it plain in him, his desire to hurt like he’d been hurt. Sam took it easy, stayed on his side of the room. Fuck, this place was a mess. Door was nearly off its hinges, it was so busted. Sunlight stole through the crack in the threshold, forming the boundary of their new countries.

Sam pat his cheek and hissed. "Got me good."

“ _Good_.”

“What about you? You alright?”

Confusion, then, “What do you care?”

Sam sighed, exasperated. “Like I said already,” he tried standing, “I’m not interested in arresting you. Unless you’re the one who went and killed that girl.” And praise! He stood. Steady too. “You not the one that killed her, right? Be honest, I could use an easy one. And it’s _Christmas._ ”

He snorted, "Like I’d tell you if I did." 

“But it’s _Christmas,_ ” which got Sam a shake of the head and muttered derision. So, on the whole, they were on an upswing.

“You’ve got somewhere to go? I could —”

“I’ll take the damn ride,” Peter bounced back to his feet so easy that Sam’s ego checked its years and bemoaned them. “Before you get any more cheery. Makes me sick.”

Despite the tension being thick as curd, they stuck close in the door’s threshold. Sam poked his head out. The parking lot was dead still with the only lit windows fully covered by their own set of threadbare curtains. He motioned for Peter to go first. He was quick on his feet, a blur that tucked himself out of view in the passenger seat of Sam’s SUV. Sam locked up then followed. Gear shift into first and not a word about the way Peter slunk so far in his seat, nor of the feeling he had, like he’d been a getaway driver in some life. This was the reality of it: if not shame, then fear. If not fear, just common sense: safety for a gay man was stealing moments from the day and then tricking the hours into misremembering the order of things. They existed as themselves by slipping into these liminal pockets where time was briefly infinite. 

It took some minutes of same-looking pastorals surrounding them on all sides before Peter sat straight. He cleared his throat, though said nothing. Then he drummed the dash in time with Garfunkel, and then he drummed the door with a pen formerly of Sam’s cupholder. When he got to opening things, Sam finally said, “So —”

“So you’re the big guns,” not even a question.

Sam glanced over and — surprise — his anger completed its transformation; Peter searched every inch of Sam for clues to something. “I guess everybody’s heard.”

“No shit. Didn’t think they’d get a black guy on it, though.”

Sam was less surprised by that. “Call me Sidney,” he said.

There was that smile of his again. A nice one, but one he now knew split easy. “My mother hated that, drove her mad.”

“Guess that meeting’s a long way off.”

Another snort, “Like you’ve got a chance.” It seemed their conversation was about to slip off, but Peter started again. “You’ll be here that long?”

“Hope not.”

He went quiet, looking away, “Hope’s one thing, think you’re in for it though.”

Sam adjusted. “What do you mean?”

Quiet again, Peter chewed over his answer. “This town is all.”

“What’s so bad about it?” 

“Everything.”

“So why don’t you go?” The age old question he’d asked himself too. And lookit where he was. “Say I buy you a Greyhound out, you’d take it?”

“All I know is here.” 

“Didn’t take long for you to know me.” 

“And to regret it.”

“The pig-to-people ratio is pretty small out there.”

“I’m not apologizing.”

“Not with a straight face.”

Another roll of the eyes, but the side mirror caught Peter’s sly smile. The long stretch of uninterrupted woods was given over to clipped sentences, mostly with Sam’s continual astonishment at how full these “empty” spaces were, every damned tree its own ecosystem, and Peter adding the occasional assurance that he wasn’t directing Sam to the middle of nowhere to be beaten bloody and left carless. He’d cooled by then and wasn’t thirsty for anything so iron-rich. Sam believed him when he saw two old guys hobbling side by side along the road on pointy sticks, each carrying baskets of picked detritus. Peter ducked so he was some hair poking out from the dash. Sam thought him too distinct to go without a mustachio’d disguise, but he bit back his joke. Just a little further ahead, there were open gates to a trailer park. They stopped far outside them.

They were back to their silence, Peter to his fidgeting.

He scratched the top of his jeans. "One of my better nights, all things considered." 

Sam’s brows rocketed to the damn skies, “Can’t say getting my ass beat was the worst way I’ve woken up.”

“One hit and he whines forever.” 

“Look at my face. Ain’t a mama I’ll impress with this.”

Peter took his chin between the hard grip of his forefinger and thumb and forced Sam’s face towards him. Jerked it left, then right to inspect the angles he’d mapped in the dark. Brusquely, Peter pat his cheek. Like, daylight needed to know how hard it was to touch, how the purity of sunlight burned the sincerity right out of him. Sam flinched. “It makes you rugged, like a man. They’ll like that more.” 

Rubbing his jaw, “And you too?”

“Still not apologizing,” though his fingers did lift from his leg, like they wanted to.

“Wouldn’t ask it of you.”

Peter was at his quietest, slipping out the passenger seat and so softly shutting the door. Sam was ready to pine for a minute, to watch that straw hair melt into snow. But Peter hesitated by his door. Something ate at him, enough for him to wrap on the window. Sam reached over to crank it, too slow. Peter was pushing down on the glass as he leaned in, blurted, “Get out’ve here fast, okay?”

Huh, “No dinner then.”

“I’m serious. Get this over with and go.”

Then he was gone. Leaving Sam to wonder, why?


End file.
